“That isn't the right account.”
Gavin said it so quickly that for one ridiculous second I wondered if I had actually made a mistake.
I turned the phone toward him.
“The last four numbers match.”
He didn't look at the screen.
“It must be an old account.”
“No.”
“Audrey, you're upset.”
“Twenty thousand dollars was supposed to be in there.”
“I said I'll explain it.”
“Then explain it.”
Marlene stood beside me without speaking.
For years, she had been the person who softened questions whenever Gavin was uncomfortable.
If he missed a family dinner, she would say his work had been overwhelming.
If a bill arrived late, she would say his customers were slow to pay.
If he bought something expensive, she would tell me that running a business came with unpredictable costs.
Now she simply waited.
Gavin rubbed the back of his neck.
“I moved the savings.”
“Where?”
“Somewhere with a better return.”
“What bank?”
He hesitated.
“It isn't exactly a bank.”
Marlene's eyebrows rose.
I felt something inside me go very still.
“What's the name?”
“I don't remember.”
“You moved twenty thousand dollars somewhere you don't remember the name of?”
“I remember it. The app is down.”
“Then open the website.”
“I don't have time for this.”
He looked at his watch.
The same watch he had bought himself two months earlier after telling me we needed to delay buying the changing table.
That detail came back with uncomfortable clarity.
Marlene reached into her handbag and handed me her car keys.
“We're going to the bank.”
Gavin stepped toward us.
“You don't need to drag Mom into this.”
I looked at him.
“You already dragged her into it when you took eight thousand dollars from her.”
He went silent.
Beth appeared at the end of the hallway.
Her expression was professional, but her eyes briefly moved toward Gavin.
“Audrey, if you need somewhere private to wait, we can arrange that.”
“I’m leaving with Marlene.”
Gavin shook his head.
“This is getting ridiculous.”
I didn't answer.
I walked outside.
He called my name once.
Then again.
I kept walking.
My phone vibrated before we reached Marlene's car.
A message from Gavin.
You're letting my mother interfere in our marriage.
I read it.
Then I turned the screen off.
At the bank, a representative named Luis took us into a small office.
He verified my identity and checked the joint savings account.
The account was exactly the one I remembered.
There was no second savings account attached to it.
No investment account.
No transfer waiting to settle.
No hidden balance.
Luis helped me establish my own online access and update the contact information so future notices would come directly to me.
Then he printed the statements.
The paper slid across the desk.
I looked at the first page.
A deposit from my summer enrollment work.
Two hundred dollars.
Another deposit from extra hours.
Four hundred.
A tax refund we had agreed to save.
More than two thousand.
Then the withdrawals began.
Five thousand dollars.
Five thousand more.
Then another.
Then another.
Every one of them had gone to Gavin's personal checking account.
I recognized the dates.
The first was shortly after he brought home a used rocking chair.
He had said we needed to be sensible and stop spending on things that weren't necessary.
The second was around the time I returned the nursery curtains.
I remembered carrying the unopened package into the store while my stomach was already beginning to show.
The clerk had asked if the curtains were defective.
I had smiled and said no.
We just needed the money.
I stared at the statement.
I remembered being proud of myself for making the sacrifice.
Now I wondered what he had spent the money on.
Luis pointed to the transactions.
“These were transfers from the joint savings account into the personal checking account.”
“Can you tell me what happened after that?”
“Not from this account.”
“I want copies of everything I'm entitled to receive.”
He nodded.
He printed the available records.
I also checked the household checking account.
The mortgage was current.
Utilities were current.
There was still enough in the emergency fund to cover basic expenses for a while.
I changed my direct-deposit information for the paycheck I would receive after maternity leave paperwork was processed.
It was a small action.
But it was the first financial decision I had made all day without asking Gavin whether it was okay.
Marlene waited quietly.
When we left, she drove to a diner two blocks away.
I ordered soup.
She ordered coffee.
Neither of us touched the menus for long.
“Do you want to call somebody?” she asked.
“My friend Kelly.”
“Call her.”
“I need to tell her myself.”
Kelly worked with me at the school.
When she answered, I tried to explain calmly.
I failed.
She didn't interrupt.
When I finished, her first question wasn't about Gavin.
“Where are you sleeping tonight?”
I looked at Marlene.
“I don't know.”
“You can stay with me,” Marlene said.
Kelly heard her.
“Good.”
I almost laughed.
It was the first normal-sounding word anyone had said to me that afternoon.
My phone buzzed again.
Gavin.
I opened the message.
I can put it back. Stop telling people.
I typed one sentence.
Where is it now?
Three dots appeared.
Then disappeared.
No answer came.
Marlene looked at me.
“What did he say?”
I handed her the phone.
She read it.
Then she reached into her handbag.
“I need to show you something.”
She unfolded a printed hospital estimate.
At first, I thought it was simply another document related to my upcoming delivery.
Then I saw the handwritten note at the top.
Transfer to Gavin.
“What is this?”
“He sent it yesterday.”
I read the page.
At the bottom was a statement claiming payment was required before I could be admitted to the hospital.
My chest tightened.
“Is this from the hospital?”
Marlene shook her head.
“I wasn't sure.”
She opened the email Gavin had sent her.
If you can't help with $9,600, Audrey may not be able to get into the hospital. Please don't tell her I asked. She's scared enough already.
Below that was another message.
Send it to me. I'll make sure it gets where it needs to go.
I pushed my soup away.
“He asked you for another nine thousand six hundred dollars?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Yesterday.”
“And you came to the clinic today because of this?”
She nodded.
“I wanted to speak to someone directly.”
I stared at the estimate.
“The eight thousand was supposed to be for medical expenses.”
“Yes.”
“And he was asking you for another nine thousand six hundred.”
“Yes.”
I looked at the statement from the savings account.
Twenty thousand dollars.
Gone.
The insurance was apparently inactive.
My husband was asking his mother for another $9,600.
And he still hadn't explained where the first twenty thousand had gone.
Marlene reached across the table.
“I should have called you months ago.”
I looked at her.
“Why didn't you?”
She didn't answer immediately.
Instead, she folded the hospital estimate and placed it between us.
“I think we both need to ask better questions now.”
That evening, she took me to her house.
The guest room had a narrow bed beneath a window overlooking the backyard.
She cleared a sewing basket from the chair and set fresh towels on the dresser.
I had arrived with only my purse, appointment papers, and the clothes I was wearing.
“We'll get whatever else you need,” she said.
I sat on the edge of the bed.
For the first time all day, I let myself cry.
Not loudly.
Just enough that my shoulders began to shake.
Marlene didn't tell me everything would be fine.
She didn't say Gavin would change.
She simply placed a glass of water beside me and left the door open.
Later, when I came downstairs, she was sitting at the kitchen table with the ultrasound photograph in front of her.
The baby looked impossibly small on the paper.
Marlene touched the edge of it.
“I’m sorry.”
I sat across from her.
“For what?”
“For believing him when he said you didn't want me involved.”
I stared at her.
“He told me you thought I was irresponsible.”
“He told me you didn't want me at the shower.”
“I did want you there.”
Her face tightened.
“I sent the yellow sweater.”
I remembered it immediately.
The sweater had been folded inside a shopping bag near the garage.
Gavin had told me one of his customer's wives had given it to him.
“You made that?”
She nodded.
“I started it after your first ultrasound.”
I picked up my phone and showed her the picture from the shower.
The yellow sweater was visible beside the cake.
Marlene touched the screen.
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
Then she whispered, “He told me you didn't want me there.”
I looked at the woman across from me.
And suddenly, the money wasn't the only thing Gavin had been moving.
He had been moving people apart.
Click here to continue reading: PART 3: The More Marlene Explained, the More I Realized Our Marriage Had Been Built Around Questions I Was Never Allowed to Ask
The Card Hit the Floor, But the Question That Followed Was Far More Expensive Than the Ultrasound
Part 2 of 20
